Leisure Suit Larry & OrkyDorky see BRUNO - this sounds amazing!

Hey folks, Harry here... Seems they screened BRUNO tonight and from the sound of it, it's a homerun. Can't wait to see the whole think like these two... Watch out for Spoilers...

hi harry,
i've been a longtime AICN reader but this is the first chance i've had to review a film before it came out. until this past december i lived in destin, FL and, believe it or not, they don't conduct too many test screenings down there. which is one of the reasons i moved to long beach (the other being the company i work for kinda forced me too - but hey, i coulda quit, right??). anyway, as luck would have it, I was walking into a movie theater this past weekend to check out watchmen (loved it but missed the squid) when i spotted a dude giving out free movie passes. i ask him what movie he's pushing, and he says the latest sasha cohen film. that's all i needed to hear - i was in. i laughed my ass off at borat and have been impatiently waiting for the bruno movie ever since people first started reporting sightings of the character forever ago.
but enough of the annoying background - you just want to know about the movie right? well i'm happy to report it's everything i was hoping for - shocking, jaw-dropping and TOTALLY FUCKING HILARIOUS. like borat, real people "co-star" in the scenes with him, and the interviews move the story forward. also like borat, he has a sidekick, a nerdy assistant named lutz. i know the way i'm describing the movie it sounds like borat 2, and in many ways they are similar, but the two movies definitely felt distinct from each other. for starters, bruno felt like a much bigger movie than borat, spanning the world (including the middle east!). also the people that cohen goes after are different - lots of fashion people and hollywood-types. and stylically it's slicker than borat, which makes sense since he's a super cool austrian fashion reporter as opposed to a clueless kazakstani journalist.
in terms of the plot, i don't want to give too many scenes away, because part of what made the movie for me was the surprise of what cohen gets away with. so i'm gonna to try and give you a plot description that doesn't spoil any of the jokes.
the story starts with Bruno getting fired from his job as a fashion reporter in Austria. so he heads to the US to become a famous celebrity, but everything he tries to make himself famous - shooting a tv pilot, being an extra in a movie, bringing peace to the middle east, adopting a baby - doesn't work, and he concludes it's his gayness that's holding him back. so he decides to become straight and the last third of the film revolve around his efforts to become a "normal" heterosexuel male, climaxing (pun intended) with him hosting a cage fight for thousands of crazy rednecks.
here's a few things that were clear by the end of the movie:
-sasha cohen has huge, ginormous balls. he puts himself in some crazy ass dangerous situations where i was really concerned for his physical well-being.
- homophobia is alive and well in the US. i mean i guess i knew that but when you see how pissed some people get it really drives it home.
-if you're at a test screening, and you try and flirt with the decently cute girl sitting by herself in the row in front of you, make sure her boyfriend (at least i assume it was her boyfriend) is not just getting popcorn. awkward!
-showbiz parents are nuts. bruno interviews a bunch of them for a baby photo shoot he is putting together. to me, it was the most shocking scene in the movie - these parents were willing to do ANYTHING to get their kids the part.
-don't want to give away any names, but the credit sequence at the end of the movie shows there are a bunch of rock icons who have an awesome sense of humor.
in case it's not clear, i thought this movie was FUCKING AWESOME. yeah, as I admitted earlier, I loved borat... but my buddy who I took with me didn't like borat (or at least the parts he had seen on HBO) and loved bruno. It's not perfect - could probably be 10 minutes shorter (although they said at the start the film was a work in progress, so maybe it will be by the time it's released) and the scripted stuff is not as funny as the stuff with real people - but I will say this: it is one of the funniest, craziest, most shocking movies i have ever seen and, with respect to the apatow clan, sasha cohen is the king of comedy right now. is bruno better than borat? maybe, depends on your taste. i will say that my buddy and i both laughed to the point we were crying, and some dude i was talking to in the lobby afterwords said he laughed so hard he broke his chair!! i'm sure you'll get similar reviews about this screening (and probably better written - cut me some slack, i'm not a writer) but i wanted to be the first to say bruno rocks!
one final note - i have no idea what the actual title is, since it wasn't really said anywhere, but I guess it's just "bruno"?
and oh yeah (I've always wanted to say this!!!) - if you use this review, call me LEISURE SUIT LAWRENCE!

And here's OrkyDorky

Preview screening of BRUNO
I saw a screening tonight of Sasha Baren Cohen’s new movie BRUNO in the marina.
WOW, I have to say I have NEVER quite seen a movie like this. However outrageous BORAT was, this one is 10 times sharper, wittier and altogether ballsier. And I fucking LOVED every second of it.
It will be very interesting to see how the masses will receive this movie: it is not just gay but sexually graphically, hilariously GAY. I dug it and I’m not even a homosexual!
So the plot is based around the BRUNO character (who was the Austrian fashion reporter character from Da Ali G show). Bruno is busy covering fashion week in Milan when he gets the bright idea of wearing an all Velcro suit to a runway show. The suit sticks to everything and ruins some poor designer’s show. So Bruno is basically cast out of Milan and the fashion world altogether. Announcing that those people are shallow, he decides to go off to Los Angeles to become a celebrity instead.
After an attempt at a celebrity talk show (where he interviews an oblivious Paula Abdul on human furniture as well as the very first ‘white hot white supremacist superstar’, Bruno is sort of drummed out of Hollywood and decides like Angelina and George, he needs to find a ‘new shithole to save’..or as he says…’Clooney has Darfur, I need to find my Darfive…’ and off to the Middle East he goes…there’s a scene where he attempts to mediate between Israel and Palestine by telling them “Why are you all so mad at Hamas, Pita bread is the real enemy, yes?”
Anyway, like Borat the plot is secondary and episodic, with Bruno attempting to become straight (‘like Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Kevin Spacey’)…
This is a hard review to write as I don’t wanna spoil any of the surprises (and shock value is obviously a big factor here) but I would like to comment that Cohen’s brilliance isn’t merely comedy or shock – this thing is like a social experiment on America. Because people’s reactions to his antics are SO surprising and actually insightful. Like, this is the REAL America, folks.
The movie ends with a steel cage match hosted by the newly rehabilitated ‘Straight Dave/formerly Bruno’…and it will blow your mind. Nervy, outrageous, shocking…hysterical.
BEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR. HANDS F*%*ING DOWN
Yours,
Orkydorky
P.S…..ready for this? Bono, Coldplay, Elton John and Snoop Dogg sing his
Charity single at the end….G-E-N-I-U-S!!!!!!!!

If Sacha Baron Cohen wasn't so fucking funny. I mean, Borat was fucking great, as was his TV show and previous apperances by Bruno. Oh, and iwasredempted, Tom Green isn't very funny, but Freddy Got Fingered is one of the best movies I've ever seen.

I wish I could catch a test screening of the next Paul WS Anderson or Uwe Boll movie and worship it. I would dearly love being called a chlorophyll-producing living organism from the family viridiplantae.

Come on, you must be crazy! like Cohen or not, who really thinks this won't be the most entertaining and talked about movie of the year?
<p>"2nd film from the guy who was Borat" on the poster. That's all the press it needs.

...The I'm Not Even A Faggot! line, head on over to Onion A.V. and read the Wes Craven interview, where he claims Cutting Edge people, like...well, BLACKS, are "down" with his pictures. This is verified by the fact that everytime he head into his office, an excited security guard runs up to him, high fives him and says "Yo films are right on, man!". I only mildly exagerate.

Those guys may have been plants but the theater rocked and when I was leaving at the end I saw that dude's broken chair. I go to these screenings all the time and this one was an experience for sure. No spoilers here...

I think he is a huge talent, especially because he never seem to break character, even in the weirdest situations. (I only remember one moment, where Ali G was at a Porn Convention and an actress suddenly grabbed him and pushed his face between her tits. You could see Cohen laughing for one moment after this and it was clearly to see that it was him, and not Ali G.)<br>
And I also think that it was a smart move from him to not do 5 movies a year after his success with Borat, but get a small part in something unusual like Sweeney Todd instead.<br>
But I'm not sure about Brüno. (Yes, it's BrÜno, not BrUno. If you don't have an ü on your keyboard, you can also type Brueno.) Even if the reviews sound promising, I'm not sure if it was a smart move to make the same kind of movie again, only with homophobia instead of racism as topic. But we will see.

I see your point, but this is what Sacha Baron Cohen does, it's what he trained for and what he enjoys doing, exposing social taboos and this is how he does it.
<p>I agree it does seem like the same movie, but there is more to this beast than just being Borat 2. After Ali G took on politics, borat racists and now Bruno (fuck it i'm typing it like this :) with homophobia, there isn't many more places to go in this arena and would expect the next project to be very very different in some way.

Same set-up, same tedious format. I wonder if he'll rape and pillage his tv show for gags like he did in the Borat film? His shocking revelation this time - some people in the US are homophobic, a companion piece to the revelation in Borat that if you bother people, they will get annoyed with you. Well done.

There was also a moment during a Borat sketch where he intentionally got wasted chugging glasses of wine at some fancy wine tasting venue.
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He got plastered enough that he almost started laughing at his own joke about his mother wishing she was never raped since it gave her such a bastard son.
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In interviews he said he also fell asleep in the bathroom stall off camera and had to be woken up by the guests at the event. Luckily, he still remembered he was supposed to be in character and remembered where he was.

Some people love to cry plant at every review (though the recent Seth Rogen movie review 'Observe and Report' was clearly BS and studio-generated) but neither of these seemed especially 'planty' to me...they're consistent with the early reviews of Borat. They're not over-loaded with hyperbole beyond the expected...and the one viewer gives very specific details about the preview screening location which usually indicates it's real.

Unfair on the rest of the world, that is. You guys already have Religious zealots, Moronic rednecks and racists. Stop hogging all the stuff that it's not good to be.You're even trying to steal 'smug superiority' from us Brits but you've confused it with superior firepower. Enough I say. Give someone else a chance to be ignorant.

just because Borat, the clueless foreigner, was much funnier than the clueless gay character. After the amazing success of Borat, I didn't think Cohen could repeat the same formula. Besides these reviews, Isla Fisher has called it much funnier than Borat. And if you can't trust Cohen's squeeze, who can you trust? BTW, did Larry Charles direct this also?

My wife and I were at the screening last night as well and we both LOVED it! <br>
The one dude was right about Cohen putting himself in danger. There were a couple of points where I thought some real bad shit was going to go down. The dude's got balls.

Borat was the hardest I've laughed in a movie in my life. There were times I was watching whole segments of the film blurry eyed with tears. and Bruno clips have always been better than the borat ones fro mthe HBO show. I may not survive this movie. Time to break out the hernia tress again.

to get a reaction worse than the American one? And you think that makes it okay?
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Try doing that stunt in Canada. Or Spain. Or England. Or indeed almost any modern country, and you won't see anywhere near the level of homophobic outrage that the American audience displayed.
<p>
If you think Syria's hypothetical shit storm somehow excuses American homophobia, you're out of your mind.

She's a friggin ignorant, racist, moron, who got five minutes of fame for being on the UK big brother and being, you guessed it, an ignorant, racist moron. Her selling her death to the highest bidder is sickening and the fact that she's doing it to make sure her sons are set up for life doesn't justify it. .....Oh and I was joking earlier, but once again you all failed to get 'ironic humour'

Oh I get that you were being ironic. Thanks for insulting my intelligence, but like you said you are British and can't help your "smug superiority." But you also implied unironically that the U.S. has some kind of de facto monopoly on religous zealots and ignorant rednecks when there are plenty of those to be found in England and elsewhere.

When you write '..and I'm not even a homosexual!', the subtext is that you are worried people will think you're gay because you're endorsing a gay movie.<br><br>Don't sweat it. If you're not gay, in the long run, no one's going to think you're gay. Yes, even if you write a postive review for a gay-ish movie.<br><br>It would be like a gay reviewer writing 'I loved Die Hard With A Vengeance', and that's coming from someone who has never once been interested in vagina!<br><br>Sounds dumb, right?

Yeah, there's a difference. No one's arguing there. But there's also a difference in the level of hatred involved, as opposed to just disagreeing with someone.
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I mean, Fred Phelps can hold up a sign.
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I'm talking about the people who vehemently HATE the "faggots".<p>
Don't worry. You'll see exactly what I mean when the movie airs.

I call bullshit. Sure there are homophobes and there are racists in this country, but are you telling me this was not edited to be as entertaining (and agree with Cohen's "message") as possible?
To immediately use this film to support a political ideology tells me you can't discern entertainment from reality. This was not a social experiment. There is no scientific methodology.
In other words, when speaking of homophobia, sexism, racism, or any other ism, you can only speak for yourself. Don't stereotype people you don't know, or you're no better than those people to whom you think you're superior.

I will be first in line to see this, by the way. Borat was hilarious, and since SBC has supposedly upped the ante this time, I can't wait.
I just hope I can keep spoilers to a minimum. For a movie that's going to be built primarily on shock, I don't want to know any more than what I've read today.

And some Eye-talian fay-shon de-seegner supposedly attacked him - although you never know what was staged with this guy...
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,432693,00.html
http://www.celebritysmackblog.com/2008/09/26/sacha-baron-cohen-storms-fashion-week/
Is Larry "Dilbert" Charles directing this, too?

A co-worker was filmed for this at a bar in Arlington TX. The subject was the baby adoption. He was showing pictures he had taken of the baby with a snake around it's neck. Then the whole bar wanted to kick his ass because they turned off the Stars game right at the end.

Quoted just before Vin finally opened his closet door and stepped out to be photographed with his new boyfriend Perez Hilton.<p>He hasn't said anything about BRUNO yet although it's probably only a matter of time.

Not to start a fight, and I realise that, even us Brits, are far from perfect, but you have to admit, The US has taken Religious fervour and redneck ignorance to the level of Art. The first reply to my sarcasm called me a 'fag' and a 'pretentious cunt' with no sense of irony whatsoever.There's a lot of good in the US but from the outside...you do a good job of hiding it.

As far as I'm concerned, all the feedback you've gotten from us Americans so far ... only goes to prove your original point. I , on the other hand, love you and wish to bear your children. And I'm not even a homosexual. :*

Word to future plants, not using capital letters in your review DOES NOT add legitimacy or buy you AICN cred. Seriously, dude, do you read the reviews here? Weird though that they screened this in Long Beach and The Marina. I saw Borat test screening in the marina, so that makes some sense but the LBC? Hmmm.